Blue-Eyed People Genogram

The day after Martin Luther King, Jr. was killed, a teacher named Jane Elliott tried a classroom experiment on her third grade children in a small town in the United States. Elliott decided to treat the children with blue eyes differently to children with brown eyes. Her experiment was designed to demonstrate to her students how prejudice and racism feels and why it’s so wrong.

The route the children are designated to take, in addition, is specified in the writing to inspire in the audience fear. The segregated school for Black students is located within a mass of railroad tracks, warehouses, and red-light districts, all notably dangerous locations for children to be in. By specifically mentioning that Ellison had “forbidden words” added to his vocabulary, he implies that he had interacted with the many unsavory individuals in the area to the extent of learning immoral materials or skills (Ellison 4433). This emotional appeal enforces the idea that impressionable children are innocent and that their actions were forced upon them by the adults in control. It also appeals to the parental instinct to protect children and preserve their future. By being forced to maintain continuous exposure to dangerous environments and professions of ambiguous morality, the Black children are victims of tarnishing and possible injury by the White authority purposefully segregating the children to hazardous areas. The strategy in specifying the unfortunate circumstances the African American children are facing is for causing the White adults to appear as villains who impose professionals of socially denigrated on innocent children. In contrast, Ellison, despite not doing anything particularly virtuous, is designated the ‘hero’ to be cheered for along with all his associates and peers, who are also victims.

The statement relates to how the adults in The Bluest Eye communicate with the children, especially among the black adults and children, because they are taught to loathe their blackness and envy and adore the whiteness of their white neighbors. The adults, instead of “expressing love” for their skins and appearance, shame their color which they pass on to their children who, inheriting this self-hatred, continue to use language to destroy themselves. For example, in the scene when Claudia, Frieda, and Maureen are walking home, they come across Pecola who is bullied by a group of boys. She is called “black e mo” repeatedly and other offensive language not because she specifically committed a crime against them but because of their “contempt for their own blackness (Morrison 65).” Their detestation against their own skins was bred and cultivated; it was “learned self-hatred (Morrison 65).”

She broke the kids up by brown, and blue eyes giving the kids with blue eyes special treatment over the brown eyes students. This allowed the brown eyed kids to feel how colored kids are treated. The teacher put the blue eyed kids on a pedestal while treating the brown eyed kids with disgust, and unfair treatment.

How nothing has really changed during the time the video was released in 1991 from today. But most importantly finding out that the dominant race benefits from discrimination, oppression, or prejudice of minority race. That is how white privilege become to be in my opinion. How they don't need to work hard to receive the best benefits or services. For example, on the video, it showed on one hand how John gets a better car deal but on the other hand how Glen is not. It totally stirs up anger in me to see injustice happening. Since john and Glen had the same background. Furthermore, sad to see how just by one's race, they are treated unfairly. It didn't change how I feel or think of the issue the issue since it proves true to the claim that racial bias still exists in U.S.A. The experiment on the video proved if one is white, then they have white privilege and are not likely to face discrimination. Race determines if we are discriminated or oppress in society. Furthermore, aware that there has been no progress of the injustice. Finally, that discrimination or oppression are hard to identify because of freedom of speech, which, therefore, allows people to express their opinion. Learned how society justified's dominant race group negative behavior or attitude toward minority race group with freedom of

The white people are the ones with blue eyes and hence she ranked them lower to make them feel how in everyday lives African Americans feel when they are being labelled as lower to whites. She purposely switched their roles so that they would start having empathy for one another. This was the first-time blue eyed people were told that they are lower than brown eyed people. Since whites are always considered superior in society due to their color, they never got a chance to feel what it is like to be black and thus being labelled as a low status. The label of a low-status reduces the position of an individual in society and causes the society to actively limit their rights. This exercise was more effective in children than in adults. Some white people rejected Jane Elliot's idea that stated brown eyed people are superior than blue eyed people. Therefore, they misbehaved and questioned how she herself feels when told she is lower than the brown eyed

If I were a participant if one of Jane Elliott’s exercises, I would have expressed a variety of emotions. I would have felt frustrated by the way she belittled us and with the rules that she enforced. She enforced rules so that the blue eyed people would fail and for the brown eyed people to succeed. I would have also felt humiliated by the way she mocked the blue eyed people. I would have felt angry with her too for treating and talking to me as iI would have benefitted from participating in a similar activity, because of the lessons that were taught in it. The most important lesson is to treat others fairly and to not be ignorant. She makes this very clear when she says that she won’t feel sympathetic towards the blue eyed people, because there are people in this world who face this kind of treatment on a day-to-day basis.

The video goes into depth about proving that race is only skin deep, and that there is no biological explanation for it. It talks about many analysis that were done on African Americans to prove their physical differences against Caucasians such as analysis on their, hands, feet, legs etc. The video goes at great length to show that we are all genetically similar, but we focus on physical appearances to separate us into groups. The students in the video used DNA analysis and assumed that they would all have genetic similarities with those who look similar to them, when in reality Gorgeous was more similar to her white classmate than her black classmate. The video describes how there is simply no way to prove race biologically, and that superiors enforced race to create an inferior group.

At recess, Elliott witnessed three brown eyed girls gang up on a blue eyed girl, they sneered, “You better apologize to us for getting in our way because we’re better than you,” the girl sullenly apologized and walked away. Then the next day the exercise was reversed and ended with similar results. However it was noticed that the blue eyed children were not as cruel perhaps because they had felt the pain of being ostracized and did not want to

In the video, “A Class Divided,” the video shows a teacher from Iowa named, Jane Elliot who wants to teach her students the importance of discrimination. During her experimentation, she starts off her lesson by asking questions such as, “What is brotherhood?” “What is discrimination?” and “How are we supposed to treat people who look different than us?” Elliot then proceeds to ask her class if they would like to know what it feels like to be discriminated. Her emphasis in this experiment is to show how it felt to be discriminated. Elliot was inspired to do this experiment when she was listening to the television the night after they assassinated Martin Luther king. She kept hearing the news reporter say things like: “who will look after your people?” and “How will your people manage?” After this she knew she had to explain to her class in a way they will understand. Elliot decided to divide the class into two categories: the brown eyed kids and the blue eyed kids. At first the blue eyed kids were the superior race while, the brown eyed kids were the lower race. Being the inferior race meant that they had to wear blue collars around their necks in order to differentiate their eye color. Of course, the brown eyed kids had restrictions. They could not play in the playground, they could not befriend nor socialize with the blue eyed kids, and etc. The kids had a chance to walk in

This documentary was about how it feels to be discriminated upon and how it can be influenced in small children easily. Discrimination creates a barrier in the mind. For this reason, the barriers created by the prejudice are hard to overcome. In light to this, Elliott segregates her class according to eye color whereby brown eyes are perceived to be superior to the blue-eyed people. On the first day, the brown eyed pupils were provided with privileges (A Class Divided). They were allowed to have help at lunch, extra time at recess and a sense of self-worth above the blue eyed students. However, on the On the following day (not next) the situation is reversed and the blue eyed pupils are indulged with privilege which results to making brown eyed pupils feel less special compared with their peers. Elliott takes the opportunity to observe her class turning into a microcosm of society. Surprisingly, every time the experiment was carried out, the preferred group quickly turned the tables and embraced elite status. This implies that the two groups readily adopted the propaganda that Elliott sprouted on them (A Class Divided). The two created groups readily adopted their roles to perfection.

I stared blankly at the screen as the credits rolled in, the black screen appeared indicating that the documentary was over. Pure anger boiled through my blood. I was angry that I’ve been lied too, That I spent years in school believing the lies that were told. The history book tells us that Thomas Edison invented the first light bulb, but in reality it was a black man by the name of Lewis Latimer that made that light bulb flick on. Just like a handful of Africans were brought here to America by those slave ships, I had lost my identity. Slavery is the only past were given. Hidden colors was the documentary that completely transformed me. It brought out my passion for African American History. I never realize how much of an impact a documentary

The first thing that came to mind is why are we still having this issue in 2017? We have improved in almost everything but we are still struggling with racial bias. The message that came across to me was that race is still an issue and that the color of our skin means we are treated different. It was heart breaking watching the little boys and girls pick out the “pretty” and then “ugly” babies in the Doll Experiment. That was probably one of the saddest videos I have seen. It is so sad that these little kids already have racial bias and feel like they are different just because of their skin tone. I noticed that for the Doll Experiment that all the kids have very similar answers while being asked the questions. No matter what the color of

She pointed out flaws of the brown-eyed group and seemingly better traits of the blue-eyed group that made her statement seem correct leading to a generalized prejudice. Elliot then made rules for the groups, including that of recess time, drinking fountain privileges, lunch privileges, and segregation on the playground, giving advantages to the superior blue-eyed group and disadvantages to the inferior brown-eyed group which is a small-scale simulation of societal and governmental oppression of minorities. The kids laughed at the “other 's” misfortune, two kids of each group got into a fight, and hateful things were said by the “good” group while a look and feel of disappointment, shame, and exclusion was shown by the “bad” group. The roles were effectively reversed on the second day by using the same methods. The brown-eyed group were more than happy to give their collars to the blue-eyed group. The situated identities of the children were changed by Jane Elliot, an authority figure, by declaring that people of one eye color were better than people of another. She pointed out flaws and supposed shortcomings that made the one group seem inferior and the other group adopted this generalized view. This turned into discriminatory rules and acts in the class and on the playground.

One night, Two Proms. In the town of Charleston, Mississippi they lived in the past of what we tried to leave behind. The high schools in Charleston had 2 segregated Proms, so one for only whites and the other for whites or african americans, but only african americans showed up. After some arranging, the high school was able to finally have an integrated senior prom in 2008. This documentary affected me in both a positive and negative way. During the documentary, I was in disbelief that things like this still are happening around the world, let alone the United States. My faith in how good and the equality humanity decreased immensely after watching this movie. I was aware the there were still some racists on the planet but I always assumed